Chapter 48Kinship, Address, and Possession

48.1 Kinship terms have several grammatical patterns

Many kinship nouns have affiliative forms, including yup → yupi(hi) “elder brother” and sa → sa(ha) “elder sister.” Other kin expressions use kor, and some permit more than one construction. Nakagawa's upper-Saru tables therefore distinguish forms individually Nakagawa (2024: 221–223, tables 49–50). Person, dialect, and the difference between reference and address all matter.

The noun mici “father” is a useful example. Nakagawa allows both ku=mici and ku=kor mici for first-singular possession in Saru, with other persons using kor Nakagawa (2024: 223). His table lists mici(hi), while Tamura's Saru entry explicitly excludes final hi Tamura (1996: s.v. míci). Refsing reports no possessed mici in her Shizunai material Refsing (1986: 86) ‹contested›.

48.2 Dialect differences in parent and sibling terms

Parent terms require a dialect label. Chitose hāpo means “father,” with totto for “mother”; in much of Hokkaido, hapo instead means “mother” Satō (2008: 152, 168, 214). Nakagawa gives mici for “father” in Horobetsu, Shizunai, middle and upper Saru, and several eastern varieties; lower Saru has iyapo, while Ishikari has hampe Nakagawa (2024: 222–223).

“Mother” totto is also recorded in Tamura's Saru dictionary Tamura (1996: s.v. totto). Its occurrence alone does not identify a passage as Chitose. In a quotation attributed to Nakamoto Mutsuko, an Ainu Times article contrasts ku=tekehe “my hand” with ku=kor totto “my mother” Yokoyama (2002: ainu-times/024/1#19–20). The article's transcription is labelled Saru–Chitose.

Sibling vocabulary also encodes the relationship between the people involved. Nakagawa distinguishes a woman's younger sister, matak, from a man's younger sister: upper-Saru matapa, Chitose macirpe, and tures in other varieties and in Saru oral literature Nakagawa (2024: 224).

48.3 Reference and address

A word used to describe a relative need not be the ordinary word used to call that person. Nakagawa distinguishes reference terms such as ona “father,” unu “mother,” yup “elder brother,” and sa “elder sister” from their address counterparts. Many address terms can appear alone; some occur with first-singular ku= Nakagawa (2024: 224–226).

The distinction has historical and genre limits. Kindaichi and Chiri record epic vocatives a-ona and a-unu Kindaichi & Chiri (1936: 25) ‹contested›. These differ from a general reference-only characterization of those parent terms in the modern descriptions.

For sibling address, both Satō and Nakagawa give ku=yupo and ku=sapo. Satō reports a speaker's rejection of younger-sibling address, whereas Nakagawa quotes Saru ku=mataki “younger sister” and a Chitose address to a niece, ku=matkarku Satō (2008: 152); Nakagawa (2024: 225–226, examples 263–265) ‹contested›. These forms need to be learned as documented address expressions; the contrast does not establish a general vocative suffix.

48.4 Social address and grammatical person

Kinship terms can address people outside biological kinship. Satō's Chitose examples use acapo “uncle” or ku=sapo “elder sister” respectfully for suitable non-relatives. When such an ordinary noun identifies the addressee, the verb has third-person, zero indexing in his examples Satō (2008: 213–214).

His ku-sapo ipe a ruwe? addresses the listener: “Elder sister, have you eaten?” The first-singular prefix belongs to the kinship noun, while ipe has no second-person prefix Satō (2008: 214). The same surface person pattern can describe a third party in a different context; the conversational setting supplies the address reading.

Satō also describes senior kin terms such as totto used for self-reference when speaking to a younger relative. He excludes yupo and sapo from that self-reference pattern Satō (2008: 215). Address and self-reference thus have different restrictions even within his Chitose account.

48.5 Honorific fourth person

Honorific use of the fourth-person series refers to the addressee. Nakagawa describes it in respectful speech and prayers, alongside inclusive, indefinite, narrative, and quotation uses of the same formal series Nakagawa (2024: 175–176); Bugaeva, Nichols & Bickel (2022: 53). These functions must be distinguished by context; an isolated fourth-person possessive form does not determine which one is intended.

Nakagawa's Chitose honorific question illustrates the listener reading:

Fourth person is not obligatory in every prayer. Nakagawa contrasts an owl-god prayer using fourth person with a tsunami-god prayer using second person by the same speaker. He tentatively suggests that the addressed being may affect the choice Nakagawa (2024: 176, examples 142–143) ‹speculative›. See Chapter 62 (Person Marking and Argument Roles) for the full range of person functions.

48.6 Narrative possession and existential clauses

In first-person narratives, fourth-person kinship forms can refer to the narrator's relatives. Kimura Kimi's Saru narrative begins with two existential clauses:

The possessive relation is expressed on the kinship nouns, while an predicates their existence. Chudá discusses this pattern among existential possession constructions in the oral material examined in her study Chudá (2025: 252–254). Its narrative first-person interpretation supplies no evidence for honorific reference to an esteemed third party. See Chapter 98 (Predicative Possession) for the comparison with possession expressed by a verb.